had you on the open road and now we're singing
by potterywheel
Summary: The roadtrip AU no one asked for.


AN: title from Drive by Halsey (ahhhh swoon); this is the roadtrip au no one asked for.

Disclaimer: I don't own shit. Also I'm really shitty at geography.

* * *

Ran makes an inventory on the first night:

1\. Three sweets from Osaka, courtesy of Kazuha

2\. A wallet full of:

a. Grocery-receipts-turned-memos

b. Five one-thousand-yen notes

c. One faded photograph – she left the other one (with Shinichi) back at home in her room because of a serial-snatcher

3\. House keys

4\. Her cell phone that's running on 70%

Next to her, Sera snores obnoxiously. Apart from the drool staining her collar (and the seatbelt), Ran has no incentive to wake her up. In fact, Ran contemplates sleeping too, running her fingers through her tangled, damp hair and wondering if they're still inside Tokyo. She shakes her head – they've got to be, and besides, it's better if someone keeps watch; who knows how many highway snatchers there are.

The engine, decades-old, rumbles underneath and her seat shudders. It is leather if not mauled, stroking and senile at the back of her knees. Ran sniffs. Her camo jacket sags slightly against her lap, barely useful against the wintery blast of Sera's truck's air conditioning. Perhaps it's not her truck, Ran thinks, frowning.

Deniable theft aside, Sera could well be adding abduction onto her list. Ran can already see the headlines: 18th June, 2015 – Missing Teenage Daughter of Famous Detective Found in Suburbs of Tokyo. Or something. Ran's not very good with geography anyway, and the only road sign she can see is a big fat sixty. A speed limit, exactly what she needs on a leaking truck suspended somewhere between the last gas station and the next. She sighs again.

Some homesick pop song sputters on, rivalled by background static. It sounds suspiciously like Okino Yoko, and Ran flips her phone open again. 70% and still no missed calls; she checks her messages again, and finds herself automatically glaring down Shinichi's unbolded name. The timestamp beside it is from two months ago, when she stumbled upon a dead body, and Shinichi – magically assisted by Conan – deduced the right things at the right time in the worst way. Ran sniffs again, and shuts the phone a little harsher than necessary.

* * *

When Ran wakes up to the warm musk of a sunbeam, Sera is not next to her, though Sera's jacket _is_ \- on her, that is. The engine is still groaning beneath her, and she wonders how she managed to sleep through the vibrations. Neck aching, she stretches, squinting at the signboard over a rotting yellow building obviously under renovation. It's a fast food stop.

"Ah! Dad must have called to-" she fumbles with the cover of her phone.

68% and nothing. It's seven in the morning, she reasons, so they probably aren't awake. Something nags at her- they've had the entire night since dinner to call, so why not? Exhaling slowly, she reclines against the chair, feeling the scratch of leather against her cold, frazzled hair. Ran winces, and snaps the seatbelt off. Sera's jacket almost falls, so Ran tugs it back onto her lap and folds it neatly before placing it on the driver's seat. She does the same for her own jacket, and contemplates getting out of the truck. The key's still in the ignition, so Sera's probably going to be back soon. But maybe she should check, just in case -

A door is swung open so fast Ran swears she can see scorch marks on its plastic hinges. Sera follows, sliding in so smoothly it's _strange_ , and she's got two inflated paper bags. Ran accepts one, watching Sera's hand linger for a second too long, or her eyes blink- unfocused- looking past Ran before looking back at her and _, and it's gone_. The sly twist of mischief and childish wonder is back in Sera's face, stirring in her eyes and stretching her lips so wide Ran thinks it's gonna hurt. (Ran smiles back, unwittingly.)

"Ah, thank you," Ran says. Her throat feels a little sore. "I- where are we?"

Sera doesn't answer immediately; hands tangled in paper bags and other parts of the packaging, she's managed to stuff a French fry in her mouth, "Foosh- _food_. Man, I've missed burgers! Hey, why don't you eat too? You must be hungry. This burger's really, really good, and the fries are to die for-"

There she goes again, rattling at a hundred words a second. Ran forces a laugh, watching Sera down half a bottle of coke and pour pepper into her fries simultaneously.

Sera stops halfway (she's at least three quarters done with her meal) and glances sheepishly at Ran's stiff posture. "Ahhhh, I'm so sorry! I forgot to say my graces, didn't I?" and then, shrugging at the remnants of a burger, "let's eat!"

The paper bag is hot when she places it on her lap, so Ran scoots to the side and places it on her seat instead. "No, no, it's nothing like that. I just-"

"Oh! D'ya wanna brush your teeth first! We should probably pick up some toothbrushes but y'know, you could always-"here, Sera interrupts her own chewing to chug down the coke, gargle, and spit it out through the window. All in a fluid motion.

The toothy grin takes over Sera's entire face again, revelling in Ran's awkward distaste. "Oh, don't worry, that'll evaporate soon!"

Ran glances down at her paper bag, dripping wet with condensation from the coke bottle. She takes it out hurriedly, and Sera nods encouragingly from her peripherals. It's cold and leaking and Ran takes her handkerchief to wipe the droplets on her thighs.

Sera's still watching her, and there's something uncanny about the way it resembles how she used to look over at Shinichi, waiting expectantly for his magical deductions. She wonders if Shinichi ever looked at her like that- bated breath and fanged grins- but that impish hope simply looks goofy plastered on his head. Shinichi knows a lot, she thinks, too much to ever settle for anticipation.

"Go on," Sera pushes, leaning back against the door.

Ran glances back at Sera, tightens her grip on the bottle. There's something stuffy about this – the vents are choking out lukewarm pants and she can still feel the sheer, the smoulder of the morning sun against her left arm and thigh. She might. She might.

But Ran doesn't. She's still holding the coke bottle as she exits the truck and marches off to a restroom. Her entire mouth tastes dull and stale, and she can hear the coke sloshing in its bottle. The staff in the food-stop don't approach her, though they do smile from a polite distance. She works up a brief grimace in return, and steamrolls into the nearest toilet.

The mirror is telling enough.

* * *

Sera has taken to driving again, derailing Ran's every attempt at trying to get them home with a patient sort of ramble. The first time, Sera cuts in to talk about her childhood friend who looks so much like Conan and there's a softness in her razor-sharp humour that Ran stops and lets her go on. That childhood friend not only resembles Conan, but also has that same logical side to them, running on mere adrenaline and crumbling sandcastles. Sera almost lapses into silence at a memory, but then the car in front stops, so Sera pulls out a charm from the paper bag and fixes it onto the rear-view mirror.

Maybe the truck is hers after all. "Sera-"

"Whaddya think! It's a fox, isn't it?"

"It's very cute," Ran says, glad to be in safe territory again. "Anyway, Sera-"

"No, it looks like a cat if you squint from this side… Isn't it nice, that even food-stops are giving out such charms? It's like, they wanna attract customers even if there aren't many around," Sera shrugs and twirls a strand of her hair.

"It's expected," Ran says lightly, gazing out of the window. "This isn't a densely populated area, so there's no need for gimmicks. But it's definitely nice to see something cute on a really long road!"

Sera hums in agreement, and Ran feels slightly braver. The window is lowered, and Ran sticks her face out to feel the fresh air. It still reeks of the occasional exhaust, but mostly it smells like grass everywhere. There's so much green and blue mashed into a paling gradient across the horizon, Ran can't think of any other scent this view might adopt. Everything looks like it was an hour ago and they don't seem to be getting anywhere. Some part of Ran tries to remember any significant landmark, but every lone cottage fades into the back of this wanderless going.

After a few moments, Sera turns the thermostat off. She rolls her windows down too, and settles for the slow chortle of the truck as ambience music.

* * *

Ran tries not to sleep, but she does. (Her phone was at 60%, last she checked, with a voicemail from Sonoko and a short message from Conan.)

Sera's jacket is always on her when she wakes up.

* * *

Ran checks the signal on her phone. It's dwindling and unsteady, but it's still there. The second voicemail from Sonoko is only mild irritation and curiosity- " _are you eloping with Shinichi? Oh my god, I can't believe you didn't tell me"-_ and Conan's gone camping with the Professor. Her father is probably attaching himself to a Pachinko machine. So far, no harm done.

She should be glad, no?

But it's only been the third day. Evening. Night. Some time in between all of that.

"Hey! Stop clinging onto your phone," Sera says, knocking on her side of the door.

"Ah, but someone might call, and-"

"If they do, your phone's set to ring at the loudest, isn't it? C'mon, get out!" Sera tugs at the door, and Ran almost falls out.

"Sera-! Where are we?"

At this, Sera shrugs. "I don't know, but I figured you'd like to rest at an actual hotel."

Ran takes one look at the dilapidated warehouse, and tries her hardest not to sigh.

* * *

As luck would have it, Sera and Conan and her dad all seem to have some kind of detective magnetism. Forty minutes after settling into the cramped room – with only _one_ bed, and they're fighting to sleep on the floor – there's a murder. With aching shoulders and the unfortunate inconvenience of being restlessly exhausted, Ran is _this close_ to sleeping it all off in the room next to a corpse.

Sera props her head on the bed (she won the fight and hence the chivalrous honour), looking at Ran sleepily. "There's been a murder."

Ran nods, and shuts her eyes. She feels the pressure on the bed as Sera pushes herself up, ready to solve another mystery. Ran mutters into the pillow, disgruntled.

Two minutes and a startling revelation later, Ran jerks awake, blushing through puffy cheeks and bleary yawns.

* * *

Ran mutters into the pillow, disgruntled, "Stay. Don't go."

* * *

This is their happening: three suspects, a locked room mystery, cyanide poisoning, and an inefficient police officer. Everything is too familiar, except the last. Ran is perhaps a little glad that they're out of Inspector Megure's jurisdiction; it would be hard to explain why she's with Sera without her father's permission.

They're a group of friends on a road trip, circling the outskirts of Tokyo or Nikko or Nakasendo Highway. The victim, Akiyama Ryoko, is a 26 year old grad student with an ambitious dream to reinvent social services in Japan. Her corpse is thankfully not butchered by some harsher murder method – Ran thinks that she deserves this much respect for staying steadfast and strong to her work, or so the suspects have testified.

There's a nagging feeling, though, unrepentantly suggesting that if she were murdered, she must have somehow deserved it. All her past cases have shown their victims to be toying with darker intents like blackmail or slander such that they had to be silenced. She shivers, and Sera drapes her jacket over her.

"You sure you don't wanna sleep?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"You look tired."

Ran smiles wryly. "It's just the next room. There's really no big difference. Go on, do your detective duties."

Sera eyes her. And then, for whatever reason, Sera finds a spare bed sheet and covers the corpse with it. Ran is slightly thankful, slightly indignant because she can handle that much; she's been to countless crime scenes and seen the worst of the best. But Sera's only being considerate, so Ran can handle that, even if she's used to a half-hearted 'let's eat' and off-tune jamming sessions to Okino Yoko.

The three other suspects are not nearly as recognisable. Inoue Kyouya is an average grad student with a soft demeanour but a hard take on life; Kimura Reina is interning at a law firm; Nakano Kei has three goals in life: women, wealth and waltzing. To Ran, they all seem like the weirdest people to settle for a three-day carpool together; it's not like they fight, or that they pick at each other's possible motives for murder. They just don't talk to each other. At all.

She looks at Sera, who is cheerfully engaging Kimura Reina in a round of Detective Twenty Questions, and wonders if buying the toiletries with Sera that morning had been _too much_ encouragement.

* * *

When Ran finds a fishing line and some toothpicks stuck in the sink, Sera gets the same look Conan and Shinichi do – a dangerously fishy smirk and a literal glow in their narrowed eyes.

This time, though, Sera directs her joy at Ran, and follows up with a cheesy thumbs up. "That's it."

"What've you got?" Ran asks, though mostly out of habit.

To her surprise, Sera explains choppily, and with too many hand gestures to be fully understood at 12am. Ran appreciates the thought, and makes an effort to nod at every suitable interval. By the end of it, Ran thinks she gets the gist of it, and is glad to know Akiyama Ryoko was a good person to the boot.

* * *

They return to their room at around 4am – testimonies and assuring a befuddled detective takes a lot more tact than Masumi Sera, and a lot more efficiency than Ran's courteous mannerisms. Ran collapses on the bed, and sees Sera groggily inspecting the floor.

"Sera," Ran says, before Sera can plant her face into the ground. "Sera, let's just share the bed."

At this, Sera blinks three times. And then, "A-are you sure that's alright?"

"We're both girls, aren't we?" Ran says, but it sounds croaky even to herself.

Due credit has to be accorded to Sera for waiting two whole seconds before plummeting onto the thick, hard mattress.

* * *

"…you called me 'Sera'."

A muffled noise from Ran, and then, from Sera, "You called me 'Sera'."

"Ah."

"That sure took you a long-"

"Can we _please_ just sleep first?"

* * *

Sera's possessions are littered all over the truck. There are a few additions, though:

1\. an old map for Nakasendo highway (graciously provided by one of the grad students as a truce, or thanks),

2\. their toothbrushes,

3\. some wild flowers they picked in the morning,

4\. and Ran's sweet wrappers.

At 43%, Ran calls Sonoko. "I'm with Sera."

"'Sera'? You're with- wait, did you just-"

"Yes. We're somewhere near the Nakasendo highway. I think we'll be coming home soon, though."

"Well, if it's just Sera-chan, there's nothing to worry about!" a pause. "Actually, there's everything to worry about."

"Yeah," Ran agrees with a chuckle. "It's barely been a week and we've already gotten ourselves into a murder mystery-"

"I don't mean that," Sonoko says, turning serious. "I mean, if you're already gone with her for five days-"

The signal dies. Ran raises an eyebrow, and drafts a text to Sonoko to apologise for cutting the call short. Her phone is still at 39%, and there are no new messages as of yet. She really should be checking in with her father and Conan about their meals.

But maybe they've gotten hooked on another case, she thinks, and shoves her phone into her pocket.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Ran says. "Driving like that, continuously- is that tiring?"

"It's less tiring than the roads in Tokyo," Sera answers.

* * *

When Sera shakes her awake, the sky is still dark; it's five in the morning, and Ran is sure they've slept for less than three hours each since the caffeination at their previous stop. But Sera's full of unadulterated happiness and excitement that Ran can't help mirroring her joy at first sight. It should be illegal- this much enthusiasm after a back-throbbing rest.

"We're here," Sera whispers – a first. "The Town of Wood."

Ran doesn't ask. "Let's go!"

Tiptoeing down the path, Ran has both the unease of an intruder and the comfort of a well-worn traveller at her fingertips. The town is quiet, but barely still; it's a nice change from the grumbly truck (she says this with the utmost affection after five full days of bonding). Lanterns line the pavement, glowing against the firmer texture of wood and rice paper. At a distance, the lights are a shimmer of nostalgic mist; up-close, they tip back and forth to the creak of some imaginary beetle. Something hoots, crooning at the moon. Ran wraps her jacket around herself and tries not to shudder.

Sera chuckles, "Cold?"

Ran bashfully nods. "A little."

"Y'know what'll warm us up?"

"What?"

Grinning widely, Sera whisper-shouts, "Race you!" and bolts down the streets. Ran breathes in sharply, deeply, hoping it's gonna last even if it won't, and sprints.

* * *

They are warmer, panting, leaning in and knocking their foreheads together in fits of laughter.

* * *

At dawn, they trot back to the town centre. The pancakes are delicious, and Ran notes, with a hint of disappointment, that she's running low on cash. Her heart twinges at the sight of her parents' smiles on the faded photograph. If Sera catches on, she doesn't exactly say anything. Instead, Sera holds her hand tightly and drags her to 'a temple that works miracles, no, really! That's what I heard'.

It's a small shrine for what it's worth, to be honest. There are polished pebbles scattered around the shrine, and a tiny caretaker explains that they're gargoyles guarding the shrine from any evil spirits. Sera laughs awkwardly, and accepts a tiny push-bell from the caretaker.

"You've got to ring it three times, like you do at temples," the caretaker says sternly.

Sera rings it three times.

"Now, make a wish."

Sera places the bell in the caretaker's hands, and claps thrice. Her look of determination is slightly humbling for Ran, who can't help but admit the entire thing seems a little ridiculous, or maybe just shady. Push-bells at a temple? Really?

"Now it's your turn," Sera says, pressing the bell into her hands. "Make a wish!"

Ran tries to think of her father, of Conan and the Detective Boys, of Shinichi. But all she can think about is how wonderfully surreal this is – Sera tugging at her elbow, pulling her into adventures in the past few days, and her pushing Sera into a couple more. When she's done, Sera's looking at her again, that same _look_ that she can't comprehend, but it makes her want to stare back and smile, all hitched breathing and giddy excitement.

* * *

"What you said to Sonoko," Sera preambles.

"When?"

"The phone call a while ago."

"What about that?"

"You said you wanted us to go home?"

Ran turns to look at Sera, waiting.

"Do you wanna?" Sera finally says. "Go home, I mean."

Ran considers it for a while. "I like this. I like it like this."

Sera nods. "I like this too."

* * *

AN: Sera is queer, and Ran is a girl that girls fall in love with. Just saying. cOUGH.

Reviews will be greatly appreciated!


End file.
